General Facts

Description

Det Skandinaviske Riksfællegsskap (the Commonwealth of the Scandinavian Realm, henceforth the SR) is a multi-national state composed of independent national states in personal union with the Oldenburg monarchy residing in Køpenhavn (Copenhagen), Denmark. The national states include the Scandinavian countries and their former colonies and protectorates:

In addition to member states, there are also member territories. These
are tracts of land and/or water under the jurisdiction of the SR
government, but do not form a national state on its own. There is one
realm capital territory and three dependencies:

The Dannebrog Ensigns

Officially, the SR does not have any flag, but only official ensigns and banners. However, for all practical purposes, these can be regarded as flags. Thus, the flag of the SR is the Dannebrog ensign and banner, which is the oldest in continuous use by any state in the world.

Legend has it that the Dannebrog fell from heaven during the Battle of Reval (modern day Tallinn in Estonia), in 1219, when the Danes were engaged in a crusade against heathens along the Baltic coasts. Historians, however, claim that it is likely derived from old crusader banners of the time. Whatever its exact origins, it was subsequently adopted by the Kingdom of Denmark as its banner. It later became the banner of the Kalmar Union after Archking Eric of Pomerania's unsuccessful attempt to introduce a new Nordic flag (yellow with red cross) in 1430. When Sweden left the union in 1523, Denmark-Norway continued using the Dannebrog, seeing itself as the legitimate continuation of the Kalmar Union, while Sweden-Qvenland-Finland adopted another flag modelled on the Dannebrog - a blue banner with a yellow cross. When Denmark-Norway and Sweden-Qvenland-Finland united to form the Scandinavian Realm in 1809, the Dannebrog once again became the banner of a united Scandinavia.

The name "Dannebrog" means "tanned cloth" (i.e. "red cloth"). [Note: It does not mean "Danish cloth" as it does *here*]. The Dannebrog is red with a white cross that extends to the edges of the flag. Originally, the Dannebrog was a square banner. The square Dannebrog is still used on land as the basis for regimental banners by the army. But for use at sea as an ensign the fly was lengthened such that the vertical part of the cross is shifted towards the hoist side. This was done for visual as well as practical reasons.

Originally, the Dannebrog symbolized the king, and all the ships that flew the Dannebrog was owned by him. However, in the 17th century, it became so popular that even private vessels flew it too. So an ordinance was passed allowing privately owned vessels to fly the square Dannebrog, and His Majesty's Ships to fly the swallow-tail Dannebrog. The former became the civil ensign used by the marine and other civilian vessels, and the latter became the state ensign used by the navy and government installations. By the time the Scandinavian Realm was formed in 1809, the Dannebrog symbolized not only the King, but the entire monarchy which included three kingdoms, and a number of grand duchies, duchies, principalities, protectorates, and colonies. Eventually, each state was allowed to fly the Dannebrog ensigns with their respective arms in the canton.

The civil ensign has the overall proportions of 3:4. The state ensign is a 7:8 rectangle with swallowtails giving it an overall 1:2 proportion. The width of the cross is 1/7th of the hoist; the hoist is thus divided 9:3:9 whilst the fly is divided 9:3:16 (9:3:12 for the state ensign's rectangular part, plus 14 for the swallowtails). [Note: proportions are slightly different than *here*].

Each state also has its own own official banner of arms for use on land. These were originally square banners. However, due to the maritime traditions of the SR, these banners came to mimic the proportions of the civil dannebrog ensign, with the heraldic charge is shifted towards the hoist.

State Ensign

Civil Ensign

History

The first time Scandinavia is mentioned in records is in Roman annals, and
then barely at all. However, in the 8th to 10th centuries, the Viking
excursions made Scandinavia well known indeed. The Vikings raided, traded
and explored far beyond their home areas, settled the islands of the North
Atlantic (Iceland and the Faeroe Islands) and even created settlements on
Greenland and a short-lived one in North America. Other Vikings sailed the
Russian rivers down to Persia and Constantinople. The raids stopped after
the success of Christianity in Scandinavia around the 11th century and the
formation of the three Scandinavian kingdoms - Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.
Sweden gradually expanded eastward into Finland and Nassland, and
brought them into the Scandinavian cultural zone.

In 1397, the first attempt to unite Scandinavia was made, the so-called
Kalmar Union - led by Denmark. The union wasn't exactly a success, the
Swedes in particular resisted it, and at the end of the 15th century it
was more of a state of anarchy. A very unsuccessful attempt by the Danish
king, Christian II, to crush the Swedish opposition in the 1520s led to
full-scale rebellion and the collapse of the union in 1523. Thus, the
Kingdom of Denmark-Norway and the Kingdom of Sweden-Finland replaced the
Union. Nassland became a protectorate of Sweden-Finland. The Duchies of
Schleswig and Holstein, and the Principality of Rygen were in a personal
union with the Danish-Norwegian Crown.

Just after the collapse of the Kalmar Union, the reformation took hold in
Scandinavia and strong state churches based upon Evangelic Lutheranism were
created. The strong state churches, a weak and poor nobility, an influential
class of free farmers and a strong King together would shape how
Scandinavian society would develop.

In the 17th century, Sweden-Finland started expanding eastwards, by
forcefully conquering several Baltic lands, including several lands formerly
held by Denmark-Norway. Denmark-Norway, on the other hand, looked westwards,
granted royal charters to trading companies that peacefully acquiring
several overseas tropical colonies through treaties: Tranquebar,
Martaban (in Monland), Danmarksnagore (in Frederiksnagore),
Christiansborg (in Gadangmeland), and the Cruzan Islands.
Sweden-Finland did manage to grant royal charters to trading companies as
well, but only one of them, the Nya Sverige Compagnie (New Sweden
Company), managed to establish a permanent colony, New Sweden.
Greenland, Iceland, and the Faeroe Islands were already
Norwegian colonies since viking times. The king of Denmark-Norway also
inherited what would later become the Duchy of Oldenburg.

In the beginning of the 18th century, Denmark-Norway, the Republic of the Two Crowns, and Russia together put an end to Sweden-Finland's
aggressive behaviour by defeating it in the Great Nordic War. Sweden-Finland
lost several of her Baltic dominions to Russia, while Denmark-Norway
gained the unification of Schleswig-Holstein (which had by then been divided
into a number of ducal portions).

After the Great Nordic War, the 18th century was generally a period of enlightenment: serfdom was abolished, parliamentarism developed, Lutheran missionaries arrived in the colonies. The Nicobar and Andaman Islands were colonized by both the Dansk Østindiske Compagnie (Danish East Indian Company) and missionaries. In the second half of the 18th century, the Scandinavian colonies were turned into crown colonies when the Scandinavian crowns appropriated the various trading companies and turned them into trade departments to monopolize trade in the colonies. In 1792, Denmark-Norway banned the slave trade and established in Guinea colonies along the Pepper Coast and on the island of Bolama for free negroes.

In the learned circles, another movement known as Scandinavism started to
spread with the growing realization of national identity on one hand and
common cultural heritage on the other hand. When the royal bloodline was
dying out in Sweden-Finland, the road was paved for a new union. In 1809,
King Gustav IV was deemed insane and unfit to rule and was overthrown. It
was debated whether his replacement should be the Danish-Norwegian King
Frederik VI or Gustav's uncle Karl. It fell on Frederik and Scandinavia was
united once again. Separation of Nassland was a consequence of Scandinavian Union formation. Nassina in cooperation with Napoleon not only repelled Russians, but also escaped incorporation into union. Although Nassland became formally independent, it still remained economically bound to Union through Scandinavian Peace Treaty since 1810.

The new Scandinavian Union now had a number of redundant trade departments and companies, so a number of Danish-Norwegian trade departments were merged with their Swedish-Finnish counterparts, reducing their number to four trade departments: the Kongelige Nye Sverige Handel (Royal New Sweden Trade Department), the Kongelige Østindiske Handel (Royal East Indian Trade Department), the Kongelige Guinea-Vestindiske Handel (Royal Guinean and West Indian Trade Department), and the Kongelige Arctiske Handel (Royal Arctic Trade Department). These trading departments were given trade monopoly rights to the colonies.

The new Kongelige Østindiske Handel demonstrated its new strength by defending the Mons against Burmese aggression as a pretext to secure for itself access to the teak forests around the Gulf of Martaban. The colony of Martaban expanded its territory to become Monland. Tenasserim was also rewarded to the Scandinavian Realm as a tribute state to Siam in return for helping Siam regain some of the Shan states and Chiang
Mai, which it had earlier lost to Burma.

The new Kongelige Guinea-Vestindiske Handel was equally bold. Because the slave trade was no longer legal, it was forced to seek the alternative in the plantation-based trade and to deal with the competition that was still engaged in slave trading. To secure for itself more land to establish new plantations, it had to expanded the territories of the colonies of Danish Guinea. It began waging a privateering campaign against slave traders, freeing captured slaves, employing them in the colonies of Danish Guinea, and expanding them in the process. The expanded Danish Guinean colonies later became Gebaland, Gadangmeland, and The Pepper Coast.

The trade departments developed for themselves powerful lobbies in the Scandinavian parliament. The Scandinavian Realm essentially became a corporatocracy, wherein the government of the Scandinavian Realm typically had to bow down to pressure from these trade departments. But by the 1840s, there were many independent tradesmen that wanted to break the trade departments' monopoly to trade in the colonies. In 1848, backed by North American financiers, New Sweden appropriated the Kongelige Nye Sverige Handel and joined the North American League.

New Sweden thus came to enjoy more independence than Norway did from Denmark, or Finland did from Sweden. The acts taken by New Sweden inspired Norway, Finland, and the overseas territories to demand similar independence within the Union and from the trade departments in 1849. In 1855, a new Constitution for the Common Affairs of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Oldenborg, Schleswig, Holstein, Rygen, and New Sweden was drafted and put into effect. The new Constitution treated all these states as equal members of a Skandinaviske Riksfællegsskap (Commonwealth of the Scandinavian Realm). It was also made possible for the colonies to achieve the same status once they themselves managed to appropriate the trade departments controlling their economy. In 1858, the Danish East Indies appropriated the Kongelige Østindiske Handel. In 1918, the Norwegian North Atlantic (Greenland, Iceland, and the Faeroe Islands) did the same with the Kongelige Arctiske Handel. In 1936, Danish Guinea and the Danish West Indies did the same with the Kongelige Guinea-Vestindiske Handel.

The 20th century saw the SR's involvement in the Second Great War when
Germany attacked Rygen. At about the same time, Florida also conquered the
Cruzan Islands. Germany was defeated a few years later, but a war against
Florida waged on for the next half century until it was decisively defeated
and the Cruzan Islands liberated in Florida War of 2004.

In 1954, reclaimed land on the Danish island of Amager was exchanged for the Chinese city of Tsingdav, which became another Scandinavian state.

In 1989, Samme was created as another Scandinavian state from the former Finnish province of Lappland and the former Norwegian county of Finnmark.